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Curious how you think Alvarez "created" the Bielema and Aranda departures? Nothing could be further from the truth. Bielema wanted to coach in the SEC and took his opportunity before the doubters started wondering if he could win without Paul Chryst. The running game started to decline the year Chryst left, so Bielema fired his OL coach after 3 games, wrote a note of interest to Jeff Long and left after the year. Alvarez was blindsided. Aranda stayed in Madison the year after Andersen left. He only went to LSU for the ridiculous $1.3mm they threw at him. Given the subsequent performances of the defenses after Aranda left, Alvarez looks pretty smart in not chasing stupid assistant salaries.

It's arguable that a conflict over program expectations played a role in Andersen leaving, but given his bizarre run at Oregon State I'd say that was more Andersen than anything else. Either way, that was a bad hire and all on Barry.

It's not often that a comment literally makes me laugh out loud, but this one did.

Criser isn't even in the same universe as the Kohl Center. I honestly don't even know how you compare them. Kohl is a modern, NBA caliber facility with mid level luxury suites and a seating capacity of 17,500. It holds 5,000 more fans for basketball than Crisler does. And unlike Crisler, it sells out. I've been to Crisler several times. Let's just say the renovations were necessary. They turned a dingy, depressing arena into something passable, and finally provided the program with a dedicated practice facility that others have had for years. Crisler is still lumped in with Illinois, Purdue and Iowa. It's nowhere near Kohl Center, Breslin or Value City, by far the 3 nicest arenas in the conference. It's not even as nice as Xfinity.

I also have no idea where this student section info came from. Wisconsin allots 2,100 student season tickets. They sell out every year, this year in 3 minutes. Michigan gets like 1,000 students per game.

If OSU beats Michigan and Wisconsin beats Penn State in the conference championship game, I believe OSU should go to the playoff. It would suck for me as a fan, but it's hard to argue that a 1 loss, #2 ranked OSU team that beat UW in Madison should be left out.

I still believe it's possible for 2 Big Ten teams to go in that scenario because I could see Washington losing once more. It also would not surprise me if Penn State lost to MSU.

There are still games to be played and a lot could happen. I'm not crazy about playing Minnesota in a rivalry game we've won 12 times in a row and 17 of 19. Law of averages, etc.

Trying to follow the logic here. Is Michigan touring the SEC and Big 12 while Wisconsin is getting fat on its conference schedule? Or do the awful teams in the B1G suddenly get better when they play Michigan? Everyone in the conference plays a conference schedule. Teams benefit equally from the weaker competition.

It's interesting that you included Iowa and MSU among the bad teams that help Wisconsin pad its win total. Minnesota and Northwestern can be tough outs, too. That leaves 5 truly bad teams in a conference of 14: Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana and Illinois. We'll end up playing 2 of them. You play 4.

I was at the game and crowd noise was hardly a factor. Dayne said after the gme that he coud not hear because he was suffering from an ear infection, which he suffered from since childhood and plagued him throughout his career as a NY Giant.

Edwards will return from his foot injury, although they will probably hold him out this week as a precaution with Orr out. Edwards, Cichy and Connelly will be the top 3 ILB wth Watt and Beigel outside. The ILB depth is now Jacobs, who started there last year before he was injured, and Nick Thomas, a redshirt freshman from IMG they like a lot.

They had pretty good depth at LB. Losing Orr on the first snap hurts, though.

Christ. Might want to wait and see what those dizzying sack numbers are before worrying about whether they'll be inflated by weak competition.

Wisconsin's OL will not be weak or young this year. Long before Voltz determined he could no longer play he had already ceded his position to a younger player he admitted was more talented than he was. They'll be fine. Maybe not "laughing as they run the ball 27 times in a row" fine, but fine.

Wisconsin gave back $5,000,000 to the university last year and is one of a handful of schools in the B1G that does not alloctae a penny of student activity fees to athletics. The AD is not only self sufficient but helps support the academic side of the university. Also Gov. Scott Walker cut $250 million from the university's budget last year. Although that sum was made up for by private donors within a month, it's safe to say the state taxpayers are not subsidizing the Wisconsin AD.

The direct or indirect allocation of funds could mean a lot of things. Knowing a bit about the type of expenditures the State of Wisconsin counts as "funding" to UW, I can all but guarantee you this subsidy number is misleading at best, if not bullshit.

Not buying the coaching salaries argument, either. UW has a culture and a system that has worked well. They'll pay when they have to but don't chase the $ coaches get in the SEC and wouldn't throw over $4 million per year at Brady Hoke when he would have happily taken the job for $2 million. If you are able to keep Bo Ryan around until he retires and pay him $300k less than Beilein while beating him 15 out of 17 times, I'm not sure salaries at Wisconsin are an issue.

It's not a a matter of playing LSU at Lambeau instead of Camp Randall. They wanted a marquee opponent and LSU would not come to Camp Randall. So they agreed to play LSU at Houston and have LSU come to Lambeau. The decision was to play a non-SEC opponent at home or LSU at Lambeau Field. If anyone should be pissed it's the LSU fans. I don't see the lure of traveling from Baton Rouge to a generic NFL stadium in Houston. On the other hand Lambeau is like hallowed ground and it's less than 2 hours from Madison.

Wisconsin playing at Lambeau is unique, not exactly like Michigan giving up a home game to play at Ford Field. I fly in from NY for about 4-5 home games and can't wait for this. I'm not even from Wisconsin or a Packer fan, either. Lambeau is a bucket list item. If I can cross that off while seeing Wisconsin play LSU, instead of having to watch the Packers? Same for LSU fans. They will flock to this game just for the draw of seeing their team at Lambeau Field. They are saying ticket demand will be incredibly high. Wisconsin will still have a home field advantage but it would not surprise me to see at least 25,000 LSU fans there.

You'd think at some point during the last two decades all of these built in advantages that are so obvious to you would actually manifest themselves where it counts.

Program measures like proflle, brand equity and power are junk food for the fanbase. They are also objectively worthless if they don't translate to sustained success, unless your method of keeping score is to look at licensing revenues. I promise you, the last thing I felt when Wisconsin was in the last two Final Fours was a brand inferiority or lack of profile.

The reason our program became so good? It's the same explanation for why MSU has been able to maintain its superiority over Michigan. For why UCLA or Indiana, with more "brand" and "power" than anyone, have been inconsistent, and a program without those advantages like Gonzaga has not. Why onetime powers like St. John's or Georgetown have fallen off the map, but bluebloods like Duke, Carolina or Kentucky haven't. Coaching. You need the right coach to implement and maintain the right blueprint for a consistent program identity that is also right for the university. Brand and power without the right coach are worthless, but the right coach can succeed without those things. And that's not a commentary on whether or not Beilein is the right coach for Michigan.

Fertile recruiting territory also doesn't mean anything when you are not the premiere prgram in your state. It's especially overrated in the age of one and done. Last year UW lost out on two in-state prospects, Diamond Stone and Henry Ellenson. They both led their teams to earlier NCAA tournament exits than UW managed without them (Marquette didn't even make it). They will both turn pro after a year. Wisconsin will retunr everyone and start the year in the top 10. So, while I am not insane enough to maintain that recruiting doesn't matter, I do believe chasing blue chips every year is a very difficult way to live for all but a handful of programs, most of which do not share Michigan's academic and ethical profile. I actually think this has been Izzo's greatest accomplishment, and why Tony Bennett's next few years will be interesting.

Re:#4 What does Beilein gain here if he knows Spike will appeal it and end up where he wants to go anyway, like Max did with IU? If the result is inevitable or even probable after an appeal, doesn't Beilein look better by releasing Spike to begin with?

I'm not saying Beilein doesn't have a valid interest in keeping a player from transferring within the conference. I still don't believe a coach should restrict a player from going anywhere, especially as a graduate transfer, but I see where the coach is coming from.

Why is Michigan ordained to be better than Wisconsin? I'm trying to think of a single real advantage Michigan has. Inferior facility, worse record over the last 15 years, the fabled "resouces" argument is complete nonsense. History? I guess. But current students and recruits were born almost 8 years after the Fab Five played at Michigan. That's 25 years ago, and it was followed by a scandal and exile. The more meaningful history is 18 straight NCAA appearances, 3 Final Fours, the only school in the country to make the Sweet 16 5 times in the last 6 years and in each of the last 3, finishing in the top 4 in the B1G 15 straight years and a head to head record against your current coach that's like 15-2. Following two straight Final Fours they lost 5 of their top players (3 to the NBA), their longtime coach to mid season retirement, started out 9-9 while playing 4 freshmen and starting a walk-on but still made a run to the Sweet 16. They'll be preseason top 10 next year. In other words, the program has had no downswings, even with significant adversity/attrition following the highest of the highs.

Wisconsin has been the better program for a long time. I have no idea how this can be news to you.

Oz and Don Granato were each in the running for the head coaching job. To land Tony as head coach with those two as assistants was a coup for Alvarez/Richter. Alvarez had to pull of something like this to prove that he was invested in men's hockey after watching it decline for the last few years under Eaves. He depended on his Development Program connections to recruit well enough early, won a national title and played in another title game a few years ago, but he lost some key assistants, couldn't bring in the same level talent and the program went into a spiral.

An interesting sidenote to this is Mark Johnson. He starred for UW and the Miracle on Ice team in 1980, his dad Bob Johnson was a legendary Badger coach, and Mark is now the coach of UW's very succesful women's team, which plays before great crowds in its own arena on campus.He is very popular.Mark was interested in the men's job when they hired Eaves and spoke to Alvarez during this search as well. It probably took a home run hire like the one they pulled off to avoid some second guessing within the fanbase, Anything less and the new coach is thought of as only the second best option within his own athletic department.

This hire was beyond the most optimistic expectations. Hopefully the program will be back on its feet quickly.

Wisconsin's offensive efficiency rating over the last two years was insane. Last year it was the highest in the history of the modern era, obliterating the 2014 Michigan team you will probably hold out as the standard for "beautiful" basketball. But keep spewing nonsense that it's ugly. What else can you say about a program that's beaten you like a drum for the last 10 years?

Wisconsin lost 4 seniors from a team that went to back-to back Final Fours, 3 of whom are now playing in the NBA, the best coach in program history to retirement in the middle of the season, one top 100 recruit to season ending foot surgery and another days before the season started to an arcane eligibility issue over his high school transcript from Belgium. They've now beaten Michigan 16 of the last 18 games and are poised to make their 18th straight NCAA tournament.

It's not like Michigan is the only program in the country with injuries or adversity.

I think you need to get out more. There is a whole world out there beyond Grand Rapids.

Wisconsin, UCLA, Texas, North Carolina and even Florida are elite public academic institutions with powerhouse athletic departments, huge budgets, cutting edge facilities and large fanbases. If you put the most stock in the Shanghai rankings, as you should, Wisconsin is the only school in the world ranked in the top 25 in academics, football and basketball last year. UW's revenue/expenditures are in the top 5 as well (#2 in 2014) http://www.businessinsider.com/texas-revenue-college-sports-2014-9

We can find statistics to support any argument, but regardless of where you look it's absurd to assert that Michigan's blend of academics and athletics is unique on the national landscape.

As for the original question, sometimes it's matter of priorites. As a Wisconsin alum, just shoot me before my school tries to confuse itself with a place like Arkansas or LSU, crappy academic institutions with significant budget issues that throw millions of dollars at assistant football coaches like drunken sailors on shore leave. And yes, i realize athletic departments are self-sufficient entities that don't bleed resources from academic departments. At least try to pretend your football porogram has a university attached to it.

Coaching searches are about finding the right cultural fit. It's not simply about "resources." As all Michigan fans know by now, it's a very difficult exercise to get right. On paper Gary Andersen was a great candidate. He won 11 games last year. He was also a disaster at Wisconsin because he underestimated the school's real emphasis on academics and the refusal of admissions to rubber stamp any kid who cleared the NCAA's requiements. So, because Wisconsin didn't throw $5 million at some ethically dubious, gun-for-hire and hired Paul Chryst instead, it settled for the familiar? Or did Wisconsin go for a really smart football coach who understands that winning is important, but so is a perfect APR score and being one of 8 Power 5 schools wth fewer than 2 arrests in the last 5 years? The SEC doesn't give a shit about that last part. Some of us do.

I met Chris a few times and I'm not surprised by this. He is a highly intelligent, thoughtful and serious kid. He made a mature decision and made it for the right reasons, but I'm sure it was also driven, in part, by the opportunities he will have outside of football. He sees himself as more than a football player and does not want to jeaopardize his life goals for 2-3 years of football. For that reason I can't see it having a domino effect among other players. It will trigger debate, but I doubt there are too many players with their entire careers ahead of them who are willing to give up the financial, ego and competitive rewards of the NFL for whatever plans they've made for after football (if any).

Also, the press may report he did this because he is already experiencing symptoms or cognitive deficiencies. Untrue. He did suffer a concussion at Wisconsin but at this point it was all about research and risk calculation.

Gasser and Koenig are both 6'4". Wisconsin has great size. I don't think anyone matches up with Kentucky either, but Wisconsin's size is the reason some pundits think they'd have a chance.

Kentucky will absolutely overwhelm the field with their defense. They have length, athleticism, depth, and their ability to recover is as good as I've ever seen. Wisconsin is tough this year because they can score from every position on the floor and they pass the ball well, but Kentucky can defend a team with multiple offensive threats. They are good enough to hound a guy like Kaminsky but still quick and long enough to recover when he passes out of a double/triple team. Maybe a team with bigs who can shoot can draw WCS and Towns out of the paint but Kentucky is just so good. Now that their goal is in site, they will play with a consistent intensity they have only flashed when they've needed to this year. I think they are going to make some teams look downright silly on offense.

The tournament Wisconsin is in features North Carolina, UCLA, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgetown, Butler and UAB. They open with UAB, then should get Florida next and if they win that they'll see UNC, Oklahoma or UCLA (or Butler). They also play at Marquette, at Cal and Duke. I don't think Milwaukee makes the schedule any more difficult but the UW Green Bay team they beat last night went 24-7 last year and is the Horizon Conference favorite again.

What does that even mean? Your original premise was that Wisconsin plays painfully slow, low scoring games, was it not? Statistics show they score about the same number of points while playing at about the same (or an even faster) pace with very similar efficiency to Michigan. Now you are arguing who looks better doing it?

Your hypothetical street poll is as relevant as asking people whether they think one runner "looks" faster than the other even though both are running at the exact same speed. More exciting to me are meaningful results, measured objectively. On that count Beilein is now 2-12 at Michigan against the team coached by the leader of the Bug People of Rigel.

There must be an awful lot of pace and excitement wrapped up in the extra two tenths of a possession that Michigan ekes out over the course of a game. Michigan plays at the 331st fastest pace in the nation, with 65.1 possessions per game. Wisconsin is 335th, at a "horrendously slow" 64.9. Points per game is a worthless stat but probably meaningful to you. Michigan averages less than a basket more per game than Wisconsin, 74.9 to 73.4.

If anything is "funny", it's that Michigan's resurgence coincides with their emphasis on aspects of the game that are benchmarks of Wisconsin's philosophy. They are both in the top 10 in fewest turnovers (UW #1, UM #7), offensive efficiency (UM #4 at 1.15 ppp, UW #10 at 1.13 ppp) and very similar defensively (UW #31 at 63 points per game and UM #46 at 65 points per game).

All three Rose Bowls were down to the wire losses to top 5 teams. If a season ending in a Rose Bowl loss is so worthless, you obviously don't think very highly of Bo's legacy. That also makes 6 Rose Bowls in the BCS era. Wisconsin has a better winning percentage than Michigan since conference expansion.

What major resource advantage do you think Michigsn has that Wisconsin does not? Both programs are in the top 10 nationally in football revenue and expenditures. Both have state of the art facilities. Camp Randall and Wisconsin's game day atmosphere do not exactly take a back seat to anyone, something everyone in the country is aware of unless you've never left Southfield. Academic support, a topic that came up here this week? Since 2009 Wisconsin has 86 academic all conference selections. Michigan? 45.

I'll give you the February recruiting title, though. Somehow we survive with our 3 star players.

Michigan is an elite program for sure. Might be a good idea to get out more, though. With a single shared national title since 1948 and mediocrity for the last 7 years, I have no idea why you think you have a right to expect more than 3 straight Rose Bowls.

I've been stunned by MSU's tone deafness this week but you guys should consider this almost like a gift. The negative implications to MSU will be so much deeper and far reaching than if they had handled this correctly by suspending him early and offering up the proper mea culpa. That program, and by extension, the university, is getting absolutely slaughtered over this. When MSU's scumbaggedry is a topic in New York Magazine, isn't that a type of win for Michigan?

We've been fighting with the occasional so-called "rational spartan" poster on our board, where outrage and negative sentiment toward MSU is virtually unanimous. It's pretty amazing that there isn't a single logical voice from the entire institution. At no point did anyone step up and recognize that the lack of accountability was not only troubling on an ethical level but also damaging from a PR standpoint. The official response to the suspensions is typically equivocal and full of lame justifications. I almost wonder who the hell is in charge there.

All MSU has done is give the rest of the country a reason to view them with disdain. It's almost like they set out to confirm their status as a second rate lowlife program. I don't know how an MSU fan will ever be able to argue equivalency again without being beaten back with this fiasco, and as someone with a few Sparty friends, that's a blessing indeed.

The best offenses are balanced enough to punish a defense that sells out to take one thing away. If they take away the run can you pass and vice versa? Can you use the run to set up the pass and vice versa? Can you play ball control if the game is tight, the weather is bad or your defense needs a blow? Can you score points quickly if it turns into a shootout?

As good as Oregon can look I'm a firm believer that you have to be able to pound teams if necessary. They haven't fared too well against fast, athletic defenses. If the defense is fast enough to minimize their strategy of putting defenders alone in space, they don't have another way to beat you.

I think you guys just want to see some acknowledgement that what happened last Saturday wasn't right, and I don't blame you. Count me as dumbfounded that MSU hasn't announced a suspension yet or forced Narduzzi to read a "my comments were taken out of context/not the way we do things here/to the extent I offended anyone I'm sorry" statement.

I'm fully familiar with Dantonio's tactics after witnessing the Jim Sorgi choking and let's face it, there is an inherent conflict of interest in having the person who is paid to win football games also be the person responsible for doling out punishments to his football players. What really surprises me, however, is that no faction of alumni/adminstrators has come forward and said "this is embarrassing and not what we want to be known for." In other words, if Dantonio can't see what's right, where are the reasonable people to turn on the lights? This should have been taken out of his hands by the end of yesterday.

Although MSU has never been on the same plane as Michigan, I lose respect for that institution by the minute.